Nailing-machine.



J. A. S. THAYER.

NAILING MACHINE.

APPLICATION FILED DEC-l4, 1914.

Patented June 20, 1916.

.35 2 Km N WITNESS 8.

TH: COLUMBIA PLANOGRAPH 420., WASHINGTON, D. C.

J OSEF A. S. THAYER, OF HARTFORD, WASHINGTON.

NAILING-MACI-IINE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented June 29, 1916..

Application filed December 14, 1914. Serial No. 877,077.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that l, Josnr A. S. THAYER, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Hartford, in the county of Snohomish and State of Washington, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Nailing-Machines, of which the following is a full, true, and exact specification.

My invention relates to nailing machines and belongs to that class of machines which are designated as hand operated machines, in distinction from power driven'machines.

The principal objects of my invention are; to provide a portable machine of the above described general character,which has means for automatically feeding nails into the proper position for driving; to provide" means for guiding the nail into the material upon which the machine is operating, and means for countersinking the nail any desired amount beneath the surface of the material.

A further object of my invention is to provide a machine as above described, which will greatly increase the amount of certain classes of nailing which one man can do in a given time without any additional labor cost, as for instance, the laying of parquet floors, it being understood that parquet floors are those which are formed by laying and nailing thin narrow strips of hard wood upon a firmer sub floor. In laying parquet floors, it is desirable that each strip be nailed at short intervals, thus requiring a large amount of nailing, all nails of which have to be counter-sunk and the holes puttied prior to finishing the floor.

Other objects will appear as my invention is more fully described in the following specification, illustrated in the accompanying drawings and pointed out in the appended claims.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a side elevation of my machine with certain parts broken away. Fig. 2 is a front elevation of Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is a part plan view of Fig. 1. Fig. l is a sectional view on line w-w of Fig. 1. Fig. 5 is a sectional view on line y-y of Fig. 2.

Referring more particularly to the drawings, numerals 1 and 2 designate legs of a U shaped frame member. The frame is made of a spring mate-rial which tends at all times to draw the le s 1 and 2 closer together than shown. uide blocks 3 are secured to the inner sides of legs 1 and 2, as

shown. The blocks 3 are channeled as at f (F ig. 5) to receive slip plates 5, which are held in place by lugs 5 The function of slip plates 5 is to prevent a deformed nail from being crowded from nail channel 6, one-half of which is in either block 3, in between blocks 3. The upper parts of nail channel 6 are tapered as at 6 for the purpose of retaining the head of the nail, as channel 6 is large enough to receive the stem of the nail but not the head unless forced through, which spreads the guide blocks 3. Blocks 3 are held in line by a taper key 7 which fits snugly a tapered slot in blocks 3 and legs 1 and 2, and is secured at one end by a screw 7. Nails are fed into nail channel 6 through a nail tube 8, which is attached to a spreader 9 which is secured to legs 1 and 2. The nails are placed in a nail box 10, provided with a sloping bottom 11 which slopes toward a slot 12, bound on either side by inclined ways 13. The ways 13 are separated just enough to allow the stem 13 of a nail to slip through and retain the head 13. Nail boX 10 is supported from the fioor by a support 1 1 and to the body by stays 15, and ways 13 which are secured at their lower ends to the spread or 9. The shape of the bottom of box 10 is such as is calculated to cause the nails to work toward the slot 12 and thus drop into ways 13 from which they slide under the in fiuence of the force of gravity into a slot 16 in the edge of spreader 9, said slot terminating in a circular hole 16 which is large enough to allow the nail head to drop through. A slide 17 having a feed slot 18, gate 19, head release 20, and operating lever 21, is adapted to slide in a groove 22 cut in the top face of spreader 9, as shown in Fig. 3. .The slide lever '21 is secured to a pin 22 which is slidably mounted in a horizontal slot 23 in a cam guide 24, which is secured to leg 2. Pin 22 also projects into diagonal cam slot 25 in a cam bar 26, which is adapted to be slid vertically within cam guide 2 1, by a hand lever 27 to which a lug 26 on the lower end of cam bar 26 is slidably connected by a pin 28, operating in a slot 29 in the outstanding end 27- of hand lever 27. The other end of hand lever 27 is hinged to straps 30 and handle 31 by a pin The forward ends of straps 30 are secured to legs 1 and 2 and the rear ends are secured to support 1 1 and handle 31 which is located between said straps 30. A recess 31 in the under side of handle provides space for hand lever 27 when in a raised position.

A finger 32 projecting from the forward end of hand lever 27, engages one end of a lift pin 33 which passes through a hammer plunger 34;. Theother end of pin 33 projects between guides 35 which are an integral part of leg 1. The hammer plunger 34 has a reduced lower end 34 which is adapted to fit snugly the nail channel 6, and an enlarged head 349 at its upper end. The hammer plunger 34 passes through the top of the Ushaped frame and through spreader 9. A resilient washer 36 is interposed between hammer head 34 and the topof the frame. The function of the resilient washer 36 is to absorb theshock of a blow on hammer head 34, and to allow the lower end 34 'the use of my device,

of the hammer plunger 34, to bedriven slightly beyond the lower end of legs I and 2, and 'thusforce the head of the nail, which it is driving, below the surface of the material upon which the machine is working.

This process is known as countersinking.

Normally the wa'sher36 supports the hammer plunger so that'its lower end is just even with or above the level of the lower ends of legs 1'and'2; The inherent energy of the washer 36 withdraws the point of the hammer plunger back to normal position after each stroke.

"Itwill be seen from the foregoing, that by the driving and countersinking. of nails is done at one operation instead of two "as 'heretofore has been usual in the art, because the small end 349 of the driver being smaller than the nail head, the resilient buffer 36 allows the end 34 to follow thenail somevdistance into the wood; that no objectionable hammer marks can. occur upon the wood surrounding the head of the driven nail, because the hammer head proper never contactsdirectly with the nail head nor with the surface which is being operated upon; that the Icountersinking of the nail'head is always uniform thus avoiding the unsightly effect of indentures alongside of the driven nail which are liable to occur when the nails are driven in the usual manner; that the nails can never bend when they are being driven and thus fold over -upon the surface operated upon which rer filled with nails from box 10,

' erating the machine.

sults in seriously marring the floor.

The procedure of driving nails with my machine is as follows: The ways 13 are kept by the shaking movmg and op. The machine is grasped by the handle 31 with the left hand of the machine, incident to and the hand lever 27 is raised by the fingers of said left hand. The raising of hand le- 7 34-. The lifting of cam ver 27 lifts cam bar 26 and hammer plunger bar 26 forces slide one nail into posinail tube 8 from 17 inwardly and moves tion to, be dropped-into which it falls into nail channel 6 beneath hammer plunger 34. The hand lever 27 is now released and the several parts operated thereby, return by gravity to their normal positions, except hammer plunger 31- which only drops until it strikes the head of the nail in nail channel 6. A blow is now struck the hammer head 34 with a carpenters hammer held in the right hand, forcing the nail into the material upon which the machine is operating. If a heavy enough blow is struck, the hammer head 34' compresses washer 36 and countersinks the nail as previously described. The machine next moved forward into position to drive another nail and the operations just described, repeated.

It will be understood that my machine is shown constructed for driving one nail at a time.

It is obvious that a number of nails may be driven at one operation of the machine by a battery of properly arranged hammers. Also my machine, with but slight changes, may be adapted to many different forms of nail driving.

While I have shown a particular form of embodiment of my invention, I am aware that many minor changes therein, will read ily suggest themselves to others skilled in the art, without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, and I desire therefore, to avoid being limited to the exact form shown and described, except as defined in the appended claims.

Having described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to protect by Letters Patent, is-

1. In a portable nail driving and countersinkingdevice in which a hand hammer is used to strike the driving blow, the combination with a movable supporting frame, comprising a U shaped member of spring material, said U member being arranged to normally retain a nail between the legs o thereof and to be spread apart by the driver enough to release said nail, of a nail tube embraced between the legs of the U shaped member, a nail receptacle connected with said nail tube, a chute which conducts the 1 5 nails to the said U shaped member, means for feeding the nails one at a time into the said tube, a headed driver whose lower end normally rests freely, and is slidable, within the said nail tube and which is of naller 12 diameter than the head of the nail to be driven, a manually operated hammer raising means by which the said hammer may be raised sufficiently to allow a nail to drop into said nail tube, and resilient washer means which normally holds the driver with its lower end slightly above the plane of the work contacting face on the frame, the arrangement being such that when the head of the driver is struck, the head of the nail 13a may be driven below the surface operated upon and the driver is automatically returned to normal position.

2. In a portable nail driving and countersinking device, a movable supporting frame comprising a U shaped member of spring material, a nail tube parallel with the legs of the said member and embraced between the said legs, a nail receptacle and a chute which conducts the nails to the said shaped'member, means for feeding the nails one at a time into the said nail tube, the said means including a hand lever, a cam bar and a slide; a headed driver whose lower end is smaller than the head of the nail to be driven and which normally rests freely and Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents slidably within the said U shaped member, a manually operated means for raising the said hammer sufficiently to allow a nail to drop into said nail tube, and a rubber washer which encircles the said driver and which normally holds the driver with its lower end slightly above the plane of the work contacting' face of the frame, the arrangement be ing such that a blow upon the said driver may sink the nail below the surface operated upon and the driver is automatically re turned to normal position.

i J OSEF A. S. THAYER. Witnesses:

FRANK H. FOWLER, WINIFRED KNAPI-I.

each, by addressing the Commissioner or Patenta,

Washington, D. G." 

